A shaggy dog tale was told about a sighting of Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy at Wahpeton long ago. Any evidence? Doggoned right there is!
On this date, way back when, I was a teenager who had just turned 16, old enough to get a job at the old folks’ home. One evening after supper, we were putting up Halloween decorations. The residents knew something was up when Jerry walked in wearing a werewolf mask and handing out cheap, orange, pumpkin-shaped cookies. One old guy got excited, barked at Jerry, and said he’d seen Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy downtown. We laughed.
Jo-Jo was featured in a book titled Very Special People that belonged to my grandma. She’d been in a circus herself and liked circus people. However, she married my widowed grandfather, a master butcher and a highly decorated World War I hero, though on the German side. His sons, of course, all fought on the American side in World War II. He’d been a national champion wrestler in Germany, and his sausages of all kinds were superb. Once, he took down the Big Tree, a Chippewa strongman who traveled from town to town in Minnesota, challenging people to take him on for cash bets.
Generational tragedy dogged my family tree, but growing up, I had a wonderful pup I trained to climb trees, play piano, and perform other tricks. People said we should go on TV. He did make the Daily News, with frame-by-frame photos showing him climbing a tree. Later, I had a German Shorthair-Labrador mix who was smarter than some people. He’d swim out into the lake and bring back fish, too.
I didn’t think about Jo-Jo again until old newspapers became available online. Then I came across a poster for the P.T. Barnum Circus in Abercrombie and then Wahpeton, both in July 1887. The highly praised talk by the erudite Jo-Jo from Russia defied public expectations. Billed as “The Human Skye Terror,” his well-groomed, hairy face was the result of a genetic condition he shared with his father.
Bob Burnett said, “Jo-Jo might be pointed out as evidence that the days of miracles are not yet passed away. He is the very masterpiece of Nature’s wildest whims. I never saw a human curio that interested me so much as did Jo-Jo. Apart from his singular canine appearance, he is very quick-witted and ‘gets back’ at sarcastic visitors in an amusing way. He delights in guying inquisitive dudes. There is nothing repulsive about Jo-Jo, but, on the contrary, he is quite attractive.”
Dakota Datebook by Lise Erdrich
SOURCES:
- Circus Poster Advertisement in Richland County Gazette, July 8, 1887
- Bob Burnette quoted in The Wahpeton Times, July 25, 1887
- Dimmer, Very Special People. Amjon Publishers, 1973.
